Whether you’re concerned about tariffs, sustainability, or conserving cash, supply chain management is critical to the success of your operations. Through its Supply Chain Initiatives program, the New York State Manufacturing Extension Partnership (NY MEP) can help your company navigate these turbulent times.
Join FuzeHub for a discussion about supply chain management with Don Lynch, Senior Project Manager at Train Develop Optimize (TDO), the NYMEP Center for Central New York; and with Pat Penfield, Professor of Supply Chain Practice at Syracuse University. You’ll learn about Supplier Scouting, upcoming training workshops, and much more.
Transcript:
Steve Melito: Hey everybody, welcome to New York State Manufacturing Now, the podcast that’s powered by FuzeHub. I’m your host, Steve Melito. Today we’re talking to Don Lynch, senior Program Manager at Train, develop, optimize, or TDO, which is the New York Manufacturing Extension Partnership Center for Central New York. We’re also talking to Pat Penfield, professor of Supply Chain Practice at Syracuse University. The topic of our talk, supply chain management, is an important one for manufacturers. Whether you’re concerned about tariffs, sustainability or just conserving precious cash, supply chain management is critical to the success of your operations. Don and Pat, welcome to New York State Manufacturing Now. Yeah, great to be here, Steve. Thank you, wonderful. So, Don, let’s start with you. Please tell us about yourself. Where did you work before joining TDO and how did your manufacturing experience shape your current supply chain focus?
Don Lynch: Thanks, Steve. I had a wonderful set of experiences in my career. I have had them so far. I’ve worked in manufacturing, performing operations roles and supply chain roles over the last 30 years prior to joining the MEP network. The last 15 years of that were with a medical device company here in the central New York area. I have been very fortunate to have joined TDO about two years ago and have had just a lot of fun working with small and medium-sized manufacturers across New York State to help them improve, among other things, their supply chain management practices. So I feel very fortunate to have an opportunity to continue to do what I enjoy doing so much.
Steve Melito: That’s fantastic and, Pat, please tell us about yourself as well. Before we began the podcast, I was having a laugh with you about how you have been on television. You’ve obviously, in addition to your education, you have many years of industry experience, including for some well-known companies. So what can you tell us?
Pat Penfield: Yeah, Steve. So prior to joining academia, I was in industry for 15 years, worked for Johnson Phillips Corporation and Raymond. I’ve got my PhD in sustainable resource management and I’ve been teaching here at the school for 20 years.
Steve Melito: All right that’s fantastic. So let’s talk supply chain management. It’s complex, but let’s try to simplify it a bit. Don, we can start with you again, In basic terms and at a high level. What’s it all about?
Don Lynch: Yeah, I thought a little bit about how to simplify something that at times can be really complex and challenging, and so I’ll take a shot at it. I think what we’re trying to do in supply chain management is to help make sure that we’re spending what’s necessary to generate revenue not more, but not less, because we can sacrifice the revenue. So, to simplify this, I think we’re trying to make sure we’re making good decisions about the money that we spend to earn revenue in a competitive marketplace, and that money is often focused on resources, materials that we purchase, services that we buy to help generate those products and or services equipment, inventory, investment and then the conversion activities what I like to call turning stuff into stuff. You know really complex terms there, but you know getting those resources in converting them into products and services that then can be sold in a competitive marketplace at a price point that’s higher than what you spent to get to that point.
Steve Melito: Absolutely, Pat, what would you like to add to that?
Pat Penfield: Yeah, I think Don’s right on. I think it’s just input, transformation, output, and so you know we’re trying to do it the lowest cost, highest quality, and you know that’s what all companies are seeking.
Steve Melito: So Don. What are some common supply chain management problems you’ve seen manufacturers struggle with, and are they different at smaller companies?
Don Lynch: I think that the issues are common. The bigger question may be the scale of the risk as you’re dealing with these issues. Some of the more common issues that I run into are lack of alignment between what is being prepared for so we get back to that discussion about spending money to prepare and win revenue in a competitive marketplace. If there’s a lack of alignment or a lack of understanding, then the money that’s being spent doesn’t always translate directly into revenue that’s earned in the marketplace, and I think that’s a common challenge everywhere. And aligning what is sometimes viewed as maybe an internal facing function operations and supply chain management with what sometimes is viewed as an external facing function sales and marketing, getting those two in alignment with each other so that you’re spending money on what will generate revenue for the company and vice versa, you’re seeking and earning revenue opportunities that the company is able to fulfill that alignment piece is probably one of the biggest common challenges that I’ve run into.
Steve Melito: Sure and Pat, you mentioned earlier that you’ve done some work for some very large companies like Raymond Corporation. How do their challenges, say, differ from smaller manufacturers and are there just some common challenges in general that you see?
Pat Penfield: Yeah, there are common challenges and I think the two areas that I think most companies are struggling with is cost and labor, especially in New York, and so this is the unfortunate thing, right? So everybody’s trying to figure out how can we do things at a lower cost, but it doesn’t help with the COVID situation that we had, and then this tariff situation that’s occurring and inflation overall, right. So I think a lot of manufacturers are struggling with that right now. So try to do the most and I think if you’re a smaller company, struggle even more because you don’t have that economies of scale, and so it just makes it more and more difficult to be able to just recover from a cost standpoint. And labor, labor is a big issue. Everybody’s struggling with labor, trying to get good people. So I think it’s harder for the smaller companies to get great people because they don’t have the resources and the wherewithal that some of these large companies have, you know, in offering just great salaries.
Steve Melito: So I think there was, you know, just this issue that’s been percolating within the supply chain, you know, with these two areas in general, yeah, it’s an interesting one to think about workforces related to supply chain, and I think it’s sometimes siloed the way that people think about it, but you’ve both made a great point that it is indeed going to affect a lot of things. So part of the reason that you’re both here today is to talk about a pretty helpful program that the New York State Manufacturing Extension Partnership is running. It’s called Supply Chain Initiatives and it can provide help to companies. So, don, we can start with you again. What is this program about?
Don Lynch: Thanks, Steve. There’s some funding that is coming from our federal sister organization, the National Institute of Science and Technology. There’s funding that’s provided under the CHIPS and Science Act and that has resulted in some state awards happening across the country for states to help small and medium-sized manufacturers improve their competitiveness through improving their supply chain management practices. So here in New York we’ve got several things that we’re doing to deploy this funding in a way that benefits small and medium-sized manufacturers. The first is we’re running a supplier scouting program. So we have a set of very talented resources within our MEP network that we’re leveraging and some tools and processes to help us help companies find better suppliers. This could be because there is some type of a quality or delivery issue with an existing supplier. It could be a new technology that the current supply base can’t provide. It could be a risk management play to help reduce the risk of a single or sole source supplier, or maybe a supplier that may be coming from a long distance away, outside of the country. So those types of situations are all leading companies to look for new suppliers and we can help with that by searching, evaluating suppliers, screening them and confirming that they’re able to meet a manufacturer’s requirements and they’re interested in doing business with that manufacturer. So we’re doing literally dozens of those requests every week for companies right now and really helping, I think, a lot of companies align with a better and stronger supply base than they had before. The second program that we’re running is called a supply chain assessment, and so we are meeting with small and medium-sized manufacturers to evaluate their current supply chain management practices versus a set of 59 best practices that I’ve curated over 30 years of making mistakes in my career, lots of lessons learned that I’m happy to share with folks in that space. Not every best practice applies to every company, so that’s a big part of the conversation is what are you doing today? Why are you doing that? Have you considered these best practices? If they apply? We’ll try to boil that down to a small set of prioritized recommendations that we’ll share with the company and then come back and try to help with some implementation under the grant funding. And the third program that we’re running, which I’m very excited to be doing in partnership with Pat, is we’re offering a series of supply chain and strategic sourcing workshops that are subsidized by grant funding so we’re able to create access to these very high quality programs to help companies improve their skill set in supply chain management with their people, and so we’ve completed one of three workshops. We have two more scheduled between now and the end of the grant period, which is scheduled to end in May of this year.
Steve Melito: Okay, great, and that’s a nice segue down over to Pat and Pat, you’re an important part of this effort, especially in terms of the instruction, important part of this effort, especially in terms of the instruction. Can you tell us a little bit about this Supply Chain Initiative program and how it can help manufacturers?
Pat Penfield: Yeah, what we’re trying to do, Steve, is again teach people certain processes, certain techniques, certain tools, and really that’s the whole. Goal is, again, education. How can we make them get better at what they do right? And that’s really what you want to do Right. Just learn, you know, try to grow. And these are great classes. You know. The first one we had was just on an introduction to supply chain management. Again, just to kind of reiterate and talk about you know what processes are and you know we looked at various things that are happening today and trying to figure out. You know how do we deal with tariffs, these cost increases. You know what do we have to do in order to make sure the supply chain is stable, whole, and you know you’re not dealing with issues and problems. That’s really kind of what we talk about. Then we talk about tools that you can use. You know that TDO offers and you know very exciting and then our next two are going to be on sourcing right, very, very key and very critical these days, especially with this tariff situation that’s going on, you know, on in our country. And so, again, if you’re a sourcing person, you’re really very, I’m sure, very anxious and very concerned about these potential tariff impacts, because that’s a cost that they’ll be bearing. So I think the other thing which is nice about this class it works hand in hand with what Don’s doing, and Don is by far one of the best supply chain professionals in the country not the state in the country and so a lot of your listeners. They’d be very, very fortunate to work with Don because he is one of the best, and so this is kind of the neat thing these work hand in hand right. So we’re going to teach you some things and Don’s going to hopefully help them implement those things, and that’s ideally what this whole thing’s all about is getting better at what we do.
Steve Melito: Good. One of the terms you mentioned, don, was supplier scouting, and it makes me think about a time when it seemed like you could just go to Google and do a search and come up with a great list of suppliers. And if that couldn’t do it, then you’d go to say ThomasNet or GlobalNet or GlobalSpec or some industrial search engine and look there. That just doesn’t work as well as we’d like it to in theory. So what does the term supplier scouting mean and what’s the value that MEP centers can bring to this process?
Don Lynch: Yeah, I think it’s a great observation and a great comparison to make. It seems easy, but it’s not. One of the things that I learned from Pat very early in my career was this is a relationship business. You have relationships that facilitate effective communication, and what I mean by that you know it’s a broad term but helping to make sure that both the suppliers completely and thoroughly understand what they need to do to meet their customers’ needs and, vice versa, that the customers are completely and thoroughly explaining to suppliers what they need. So a lot of this process is gaining an understanding of what’s required for a supplier to successfully meet the needs of a small or medium-sized manufacturer and then trying to, at least preliminarily during the scouting process, identify if they’re able to meet those. So I think that’s kind of the first step is what do you need? So we have what we call an intake session with a small or medium-sized manufacturer and we try to capture what those requirements are. It’s not uncommon to have that first discussion result in a second or third follow-up to clarify, because we really want to understand exactly what the challenge is. That’s not being met and then picking up the phone and talking to people. Yes, those tools that you mentioned are part of our process. We’re clearly trying to take advantage of any technology that we can to make this as efficient as possible. But, if you will, that’s a starting point. That’s a list of contacts to make and then we pick up the phone and we start talking to people. This is what we need. This is what we’re trying to help with. These are some of the challenges that the current suppliers are having meeting that need. Is this something that you think you might be able to help them with? If not, that’s great. Now we know nine out of 10 times we will ask that supplier do you know someone that might be able to do this? And we’ll get an answer. And that’s really valuable. You don’t get that from a Google search or from a ThomasNet search Not that those aren’t great tools they are. But that conversation helps get you into that next level of nuance of maybe what specifically the supplier can provide that the manufacturer may need or not. And then, because we’re all part of a network of people, they’re often able to help us if they’re not the right ones and they’re usually very upfront about. You know, we don’t want to get into something that isn’t going to be successful either. So having that conversation upfront and really leveraging the relationship aspects of that help us to, I think, connect suppliers that are of a higher caliber, more capable than perhaps what the manufacturer is working with today, and that ultimately helps them become more competitive.
Steve Melito: Right and Pat, what do you think it takes for a manufacturer to be successful at supplier scouting? Certainly, there’s a need to really roll up your sleeves, but are there certain skills that someone would need to have to be good at this?
Pat Penfield: Yeah, I think what Don had just stated right, it’s that process. You know, having a process in place, you know, being able to understand exactly how to do it is really key and very important. I think what Don had just stated makes perfect sense. But again, if I was one of your listeners, if I was a manufacturer, I’d be working with Don just to learn the process. Once you have the process, then you know you can go ahead and start doing that stuff on your own. But that’s the great thing about Don and his organization They’ll teach people how to use that process and I think once you’ve done that, then you can go ahead and do your own supplier scouting. It’s not a hard process, it’s just a process you have to learn right and so you know. The neat thing about Don’s experience is he’s done this before. He knows how it works, he knows how to implement it and then he can show you, know these companies, how to do so. And if you do that, that’s how you can improve and get better. You know from a supplier scouting standpoint.
Steve Melito: Good. Let’s talk about the training workshops a little bit. You had both mentioned some of the topics that are covered, but when you say training workshop, people have an image that pops into their mind and I’m wondering what is it like? Is it classroom style? Do you listen all day? Do you do hands-on exercises? Maybe some of both? How long does it last? What can you tell us, don?
Don Lynch: Actually I’m a head sort of pad. This is his area of expertise.
Pat Penfield: Yeah, the workshops are over two days, so three hours on Zoom, right, and so we realize that it’s difficult for people to be on Zoom for three hours. So you’re not just going to be listening to me, you’re going to be watching videos, we’re going to be discussing articles, we’re going to be doing some actual cases, we’re going to be working on some tools, and so you know, the goal is to get smarter at what you do and then, hopefully, give them some tools that they can incorporate and use. Right, and that’s the whole goal. We want people to come away from the workshops with something that they can actually use and implement, and that’s truly what we’re striving to have happen, and it’s so needed today.
Steve Melito: Good and Pat, how can somebody find these workshops online? Don, maybe same question for you. Are they on a TDO website? Are they somewhere else? I’m going to defer that to Don first.
Don Lynch: Yeah, so the first thing we always try to do with this process is direct people to their local MEP center. There is a network of folks that are just passionate and skilled about helping small and medium-sized manufacturers succeed. FuzeHub is one of those organizations in New York State that we’re very lucky to be able to work with. There are 10 other MEP centers. Each MEP center has that contact information on how to register and FuzeHub also has some information on their website about this. So those are all sources to find this Similar to the scouting process. We want to make sure it’s a good fit. We don’t necessarily want to encourage someone to attend a workshop that they’re not going to get value out of. So we’re doing our promotional efforts through the local MEP centers and relying on their expertise to try to contact manufacturers that they have relationships with that they feel will get the most benefit from this. So that was very successful in our first workshop and we’re continuing that for the remaining two workshops. Okay, good, and the next one is in March. Next one is in March, that’ll be on strategic sourcing, and then in May we’ll have the final of the three workshop series on advanced strategic sourcing.
Steve Melito: Okay, great, and just for our listeners, if you don’t know who your local MEP center is, I would encourage you to reach out to FuzeHub and we’ll get you to the right person in the right place. That’s what we’re here for. Last question for you both what types of companies should apply to be part of the Supply Chain Initiatives Program? The reason I ask that is there’s probably somebody who’s out there saying I’m too small, or maybe I’m too big, or it’s sort of like the whole Goldilocks thing Like what’s right, what, I’m too big, or it’s sort of like the whole Goldilocks thing Like what’s right? What’s the porridge that’s going to taste the best here?
Pat Penfield: You know, honestly, it’s for everyone. You know that’s the thing Small, medium sized, large companies. You know there’s always something that you can learn and, trust me, we would not waste our time with these classes. You know, and that’s the goal Again always to come away with something you know able to employ.
Don Lynch: Yeah, and I just want to echo what Pat said there. These classes give people an opportunity to learn from. You know, from my opinion, one of the best supply chain management academic institutions in the country Syracuse University and then having Pat a professor of practice in that program who has had both manufacturing and work experience and a lot of academic training and studies and a lot of experience delivering these types of programs effectively. So it’s a tremendous opportunity for New York State manufacturers to tap into this talent that exists right here in our own community.
Steve Melito: Fantastic and Don and Pat thanks so much for being part of New York State Manufacturing Now.
Don Lynch: Appreciate it, Steve. Thanks for having us.
Pat Penfield: Yes, thank you, Steve, nice to talk to you again.
Steve Melito: You bet. So we’ve been talking to Don Lynch, senior Project Manager at TDO, and also with Pat Penfield, professor of Supply Chain Practice at Syracuse University. The topic of today’s talk, supply chain management, is one that small to medium manufacturers can’t afford to ignore. But here’s something else that will grab your attention as well. Manufacturing is the most attacked industry by cyber criminals, and many small to medium manufacturers who are attacked unfortunately don’t recover. The New York Manufacturing Extension Partnership can help you to strengthen your cyber defenses. That’s why FuzeHub is organizing the Spring 2025 Finger Lake Cybersecurity Event in Rochester on April 17th. For more information, email info at FuzeHub.com. On behalf of FuzeHub and New York State Manufacturing. Now this is Steve Melito signing off.